The Problem of Faust

Schmidt Number: S-3424

On-line since: 15th September, 2014

Lecture VI

The Second Part of Faust

The Helena Saga and the Riddle of Freedom

Dornach4th November, 1917

IN the evolution of mankind, as I have
recently been showing, inner spiritual connections prevail,
which send their influences through the soul of man. I showed
this in relation to Goethe's endeavours in his Faust,
where he relates Faust to the impulse of the fifth
post-Atlantean age by associating him with Mephistopheles, an
Ahrimanic power. I then tried to show how Faust had to dive
down into the impulses of the fourth post-Atlantean age,
which I tried to describe in their real essence. All this is
necessary, so that there takes place in the soul of Faust a
conscious interpenetration of that which prevails
unconsciously in human souls by virtue of the laws of
evolution.

I said that
the fifth post-Atlantean epoch — our epoch — will
have to do with the great and significant life-question of
Evil, — the mastery of Evil in all directions. Human
beings will have to learn to know all that the soul must
rouse and bring forth within itself in order partly to
overcome the powers of Evil, partly to transmute them into
impulses of Good. All this has arisen on the foundation of
the impulses of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, which had to
do especially with the problem of Birth and Death, — a
problem which it had received as heritage from Atlantean
time. We need only turn our gaze to the Christ-Impulse
itself, entering in as it did in the first third of the
fourth post-Atlantean period. This period began with the
founding of Rome in the year 747 before the Birth of Christ.
Thus, of the 2160 years of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch,
747 years had to run their course before the main impulse
— the Christ-Impulsecould enter in, as indeed it did
precisely in this fourth post-Atlantean epoch. Has not the
Christ-Impulse to do with the great and important question
that summons into the evolution of mankind problems of Birth
and Death in their supersensible significance? How much
discussion, how much thought and feeling has there not been
on Christian soil about the Birth of Christ! How infinitely
significant a part is played by the Death of Christ! In the
Birth and Death of Christ we see most pregnantly this
wrestling of the soul of man with the problem of Birth and
Death. It was a wrestling in the soul, because the same
struggle had already been there in a more elemental, in a
more physical form in the great Atlan Lean epoch. Notably in
the fourth civilisation-epoch of Atiantis-in the middle of
Atlantean time, and as an after-effect in the fifth period!
also, — forces connected with Birth and Death were
subject to the power of individual human beings. I have
already described some aspects of this fact. Forces there
were in the Atlanteansforces that could be developed and that
had influence on Birth and Death in a far more than merely
natural degree. The good and evil forces in the human being
had a far-reaching influence upon the health and sickness of
their fellowmen, and thereby also upon Birth and Death. In
Atlantean time one saw an actual connection between the
things one did as human being and what took place in the
so-called “course of Nature,” as Birth and
Death.

In
post-Atlantean time — in the fourth civilisation-epoch
of post-Atlantean time — this problem of Birth and
Death was transplanted more into the region of the soul. But
in our epoch, in the fifth, human beings will have to grapple
with the forces of Evil in an elemental way, just as they did
with Birth and Death in Atlantean time. Notably through the
quite different mastery over the forces of Nature, the
impulses of Evil will work into the world on a grand scale,
in a gigantic way. In the resistance which human beings will
have to summon forth from spiritual depths, the opposite
forces —the forces of Good — will have to grow.
And in particular, already during the fifth epoch it will be
possible for men to bring Evil over the Earth, by exploiting
the force of Electricity, which will assume far greater
dimensions than hitherto. Even directly out of the force of
Electricity itself, Evil comes over the Earth.

We need to
place these things before our consciousness. He who desires
to receive the spiritual impulses will then find points of
resistance; he will find the starting-points for those
impulses which must evolve by the very resistance of Evil. It
is difficult as yet to speak in any detail in this
connection; for in the widest spheres as yet, these details
touch on interests of human beings which they do not wish to
have molested. In this respect, human beings are divided. On
the one, hand are those who suffer greatly, because they
cannot clearly realise how they are interwoven with
World-Karma; how they simply must take part in this thing or
that, and cannot become abstractly pious all at once. On the
other hand are those who in many ways are caught up in this
World-Karma of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. They would
rather not hear of what is really contained in the impusles
that are going through the world, for it is often to their
interest to represent as constructive the very impulses that
are destructive. We have described, how since the last third
of the nineteenth century there have been working among human
beings those Beings whom I characterised as fallen Spirits of
Darkness — Beings of the hierarchy of Angeloi. In the
fourth post-Atlantean period, these Beings were still
ministering members of the good, progressive Powers. They
served in the creation of those orders which, as I told you,
are derived out of the blood-relationship of men. Now they
are in the realm of men, and as Angel-beings who have
remained behind, they work into the inner impulses of human
beings, to make effective in a retrogressive way — and
thereby in an Ahrimanic way — all that which is
connected with relationships of blood and clan, nation and
race. Thereby they work to mar and to hinder those other
social structures of mankind which should now arise out of
quite other foundations than for example the bonds of blood,
of family and race, clan and nation. To-day a very serious
beginning of the work of these Spirits consists precisely in
the abstract emphasis that is laid on the principle of
Nationality. This abstract emphasis on Nationality, this
setting up of programmes on the foundations of a national
principle, is among those endeavours which we must attribute
to the Spirits of Darkness who will stand far nearer to man
— who will approach man in a far more intimate way
— than did the backward Spirits of the fourth
post-Atlantean period. The latter belong to the hierarchy of
Archangeloi. Precisely this will be the significant aspect of
the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. These Beings who stand
immediately above the hierarchy of Man — these
Angel-beings — are able to approach the individual
human being very nearly and intimately. They do not merely
approach the groups. The individual will believe that he is
representing things out of his own personal impulse, where in
reality — for we can truly put it so — he is
possessed by the kind of Angel-being of whom we have been
speaking.

Let us once
more make clear to ourselves, what was the nature of the
efforts of the backward retrogressive Spirits of Darkness of
the fourth postAtlantean epoch. For we shall then be more
able to understand what is the nature of their efforts in our
present, fifth post-Atlantean epoch. In the fourth
post-Atlantean epoch, as I have told you, it was the normal
thing to build all the social structure of humanity upon the
bonds of blood — blood-relationship. During that time
— that is, during the Graeco-Latin
civilisationepoch — the Ahrimanic-Luciferic backward
Beings rebelled precisely against the bonds of blood: They
were the inspirers of that rebellion which «anted to
loosen human beings from blood- kinship. You can derive it
even from the general teachings of Spiritual Science. And
above all, it was in a sense the descendants of
individualities who in the Atlantean time had still been
working in a magical way, — it was the descendants of
these, who as rebelling individualities, became the
“Heroes” in the recapitulation of Atlantean time,
in the fourth postAtlantean epoch. I beg you now to observe
how the Graeco-Latin epoch met these rebel-beings. For in
that time, after all, there was still the wise guidance of
mankind out of the Mysteries. They clid not say to human
beings: “Avoid these rebel natures! Avoid the Ahrimanic,
Luciferic spiritual Beings!” They did not say this to them;
they knew that it lay in the wise plan of cosmic evolution to
place these Beings Nvherc they were and to use them. It is a
weakness of many people to-day, when they hear of Lucifer and
Ahriman, to explain: “For Heaven's sake, let us avoid
them!” As though they could avoid them! I have often
spoken of this. Knowledge was brought to the human beings of
the fourth post-Atlantean time in the form in which it had to
be at that time. The influence of the good Gods was there in
the bonds of blood. Human beings gave themselves up to it, in
the mutual love which was founded in the blood- relationships
(for so it was at that time; to-day it must be more purely
spiritual.) Yet, for the sake of progress, rebellions always
had to take place. This way of cosmic evolution had to be
explained to the people in myths and legends. To the
Initiates they were communicated in another form — in a
way more similar to the way in which these truths are being
taught to us to-day. But in the widest circles, human beings
of that time would not have been ready to receive the
explanations of the myths. Therefore the exoteric myths were
told to them. In these, however, deep significant truths of
evolution lay concealed.

Let us
consider an outstanding myth, connected with the very thing I
have just been placing before you. It tells how an oracle
prophesied to Laius of Thebes at his betrothal with Jocaste.
It prophesied that from this union a son would be born who
would become his father's murderer and live in incest with
his mother. Laius did not let this deter him from the
contemplated union; but when the son was born, he pierced
his heels and had him exposed on Mount Cithaeron. To a
shepherd the boy became entrusted. The shepherd's wife called
him Oedipus on account of his pierced heels. You know how the
story goes on. The boy Oedipus grew up; his talents
developed. At an early age his soul was beset by doubts
concerning his descent, for his companions drew his attention
to many things. Then the Delphic Oracle pronounced an
important saying, painful to study nowadays, if you can study
it in its whole context. The saying is: “Avoid thy
home-country; otherwise thou wilt become thy father's
murderer, thy mother's husband.” This was said to
Oedipus.

Now he was
under a complete illusion. He did not know who his father and
his mother really were. He could not but think Corinth, where
he had grown up, his home. At last he wandered from Corinth
in order not to bring about disaster there by killing his
father and marrying his mother. But the very fact that he set
out and took the way to Thebes became his doom. On the way he
met a chariot in which his father Laius was travelling with a
companion. A conflict arose; he killed his father and
continued on his way to Thebes, and his first decd was, as
you know, to solve the Riddle of the Sphinx. So we hay e
Oedipus placed in the very fullest way into the evolutionary
nexus of the fourth post-Atlantean age. For in a certain
sense the Riddle of the Sphinx — the Riddle of Man
— belonged to the fourth epoch. Oedipus was one of
those who knew. Far from replying to the Sphinx: “I am
reluctant to unveil a higher secret”; he solved the
secret. Something was thereby implanted in the fourth
post-Atlantean epoch. It was an impulse that worked on and
on, and in which Oedipus played an essential part. For we
Wright speak for many hours about the solving of the Riddle
of the Sphinx by Oedipus; but we need not do so to-day.
To-day we will only make clear that this deed reveals him as
a characteristic Hero of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch.

Now he went
on to Thebes, married his mother, whom of course he did not
hold to be his mother, and was comparatively happy —
till a plague arose. At length it was the seer Tiresias who
revealed the truth. Jocaste, suddenly knowing herself tobe
the wife of her son, killed herself by suffocation. Oedipus
blinded himself and was driven away by his own sons. Another
one, Theseus, then protected him in the Grove of Attica until
his death, and he was buried in Attic soil. We need only call
to mind the Oedipus-drama up to this point.

What does it
represent? It represents an individuality — the
Oedipusindividuality — taken out of the blood
connection, growing up outside the bonds of blood and then
transplanted back again into the blood-connection, to his own
detriment. We have before us no mere subjective rebel against
the bonds of blood, but one who by the very laws of Nature
becomes a rebel against the bonds of blood and thereby
kindles and enflames them even against himself.

Look through
the Greek mythology, and you will often find such human
beings — Heroes who are placed into the
blood-relationship in such and such it way, but who are then
exposed so that they undergo their evolution outside the
blood-relationship. Through die very fact that they are
removed from the old order, from the normal order, they then
bring in quite other impulses of evolution. Such an Hero is
Oedipus; such too is Theseus who protects him in the wood of
Attica.

No wonder if
in ancient Greece they could not tell the people who was
really behind these Heroes! They could not tell them that
they were the great rebels, who were none the less necessary
in the wise course of World-evolution. Think, for example, of
Theseus himself. Here, too, it was an oracular saying that
reached the ears of his father, so that he had his son
educated far away. The mother, who had given birth to Theseus
far from his father's home, was told: When the youth grows up
so that he can wield a certain sword, then and then only let
him return. Here again, Theseus is removed, transplanted away
from the blood-connection. He too has to solve important
riddles of the fourth post-Atlantean time. You know the
legend of how he liberated Athens from the tribute of the
youths who had to be sacrificed to the Minotaur, and of how
he saved himself by means of Ariadne's thread. Theseus became
the protector of Oedipus; yet Theseus is the very one who
carries Helena away when she is ten years old, and keeps her
in hiding. Theseus is brought into close connection with
Helena.

Deep
evolutionary riddles of the fourth post-Atlantean age are
concealed beneath these things. The Court lady of the
sixteenth century naturally had no more inkling of them than
to exclaim: “From her tenth year onward she was nothing
worth.” Yet in this line again, Goethe is hinting at
sometning deeply significant. Goethe was well aware that that
which stands behind Helena is in reality worthy of reverence,
even as Faust revered her. But with regard to Helena of all
people, the worst forces of calumny have been at work.
Mankind might learn from such things; it can very easily
happen that that which is worthy of true recognition —
that which perhaps is highest — can be the most
calumniated!

I only wished
to point this out, to show how Helena herself stands in
mysterious connection with those individualities who were the
rebels of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, and who at that
time had the task — for the wise guidance of the
Universe — to break through the blood-relationship.

How does it
stand with Paris, who is presented to us by Goethe in the
Invocation Scene — forgive the trite expression, I do
not mean it trivially — as Faust's competitor or rival?
How does it stand with Paris? Here too we are told; he was
the son of Priam and of Hecuba, and his mother had a dream
when she was pregnant with him. In this case it began not
with an oracle but with a dream — albeit a dream
containing deeper wisdom. It prophesied to Paris' mother that
she would give birth to a burning torch that would set fire
to the city of Troy. Therefore the parallel legend tells also
of an oracle which announced to the father that this his son
would serve in Troy's destruction. Whether for the one reason
or the other, the father had Paris exposed. Paris, therefore,
was also among those who were put outside the blood
community. He was brought up in Parion, far from the bonds of
blood; and it was there that there took place what the legend
tells: how Eris assigned the apple to the most beautiful, and
how Paris was called upon by the Goddesses, Hera, Pallas and
Aphrodite, to determine which of them was the fairest. It was
even said that Hera promised Paris Asia, that is the ruler-
ship over the Earth, for ‘Asia’ at that time
signified the rulership of the entire Earth. Pallas Athene
promised him fame in battle; Aphrodite the fair est of
women. Paris gave Aphrodite the prize of beauty.

Nov the great
Song of Homer describes how significantly Paris thereby
entered into the whole course of the affairs of Greece. In
Paris himself we have an individuality rebelling against the
bonds of blood. He takes Helena out of the Grecian bonds,of
blood and tries to transplant her to Troy. He wants to break
the bonds of blood. These things are always connected in this
way; in the Greek Hero-legends we always see how there is
placed into the midst of evolution that which is meant to
break the bonds of blood. For the bonds of blood — in
themselves strong, mighty and powerful — they are the
thing that really brings about the social structure in that
time.

There is one
question which can come before us very clearly in this field,
and it shall occupy us now for a few minutes. Someone might
easily raise the following question: How does it stand with
human freedom if such important deeds as the rape of Helena
by Paris are accomplished by something taking place in the
Spiritual World above, as in this case the rivalry of the
three Goddesses? The human being then appears as the mere
tool to execute what is not only prepared, but actually
worked-out, in spiritual realms above. Now in a certain sense
we must truly say: That which takes place through human
beings here below is the reflected image of what happens in
the Spiritual World. This is a point where the great riddle
of freedom mightily knocks upon the doors of human knowledge.
Are we really automata, who by their actions reveal the mere
reflected image of what happens in the Spiritual World above?
And again, how would the Spiritual World, which is the guide
and leader in all that happens, — how would the
Spiritual World stand there if, so to speak, it had nothing
to do, if it were actionless? Two things must be understood:
First, the universal course is really led and guided by
spiritual forces, spiritual Powers; and nothing happens that
does not happen down from the Spiritual World. And the second
is, that the human being has Free Will. The two things seem
diametrically opposite. We are here touching a great riddle,
a problem that gives men very much to do, and they can never
get beyond it lightly. For it is truly so if we look up into
the Spiritual World, what the Gods do there represents the
deeds of Gods; and the human beings here below carry out the
impulses of Gods. Sig indeed it is. How then can human beings
be free?

Let me now
place these problems before you with a few brief strokes. Of
course one can only indicate a little of this problem at a
time. Let us assume therefore: Up yonder are the three
Goddesses with the conflict that is taking place among them.
As a result of their conflict, there comes clown on to the
Earth the impulse that proceeds from these their actions. We
need not consider for our present purpose how these actions
are in turn connected with still higher Hierarchies. That
which takes place up yonder takes place with absolute
Necessity; and as to that which Paris does, this also happens
because the three Goddesses above have had this conflict with
one another. How then is any freedom possible for Paris? It
is practically out of the question, you will say. Yet it is
not. For the ray falls down, as it were, on to the Earth; and
here on Earth there is not one whom it can reach, but there
are many. Assume, for example, that there are an hundred.
Ninety and nine do not do the deed; the hundredth does it.
Here in effect once more the Mystery of Number plays its
part. These things are always confused. Paris does the deed,
it is true, but the point is that Paris only becomes fully
Paris inasmuch as ho finds himself prepared to put himself in
the very place where this impulse was able to he fulfilled.
In short, the Gods would have found another one if Paris had
not done it; and in that case the legend would be told of
another.

It is through
Number that you will come to the solution of this Riddle of
Freedom. And if so be, at any given point of time, among the
hundreds who stand here below no one is found, then the Gods
wail till one arrives. He then accomplishes what the Gods
place before him. Be that as it may, Paris it is who has
accomplished the deed. It does not mar his freedom in the
very least, for he could perfectly well have left the deed
undone. Think of this aspect of the problem of Number, and
you will find that the divinely necessary, wisdom-filled
guidance of the Universe stands not in contradiction to human
Freedom. Needless, to say, this does not exhaust the problem
of freedom; this again is only a part.

You see,
therefore, how in the total evolution of mankind the Heroes
of ancient Greece, of whom we are told that they were exposed
in childhood, are of great significance. And you may also
call to mind (you will find it in one of my lectures; I do
not know, I may even have said it several times) there is a
similar legend of exposure in connection with Judas. Of Judas
Iscariot we are also told that he was put out in his youth.
This is a typical feature; it signifies in the language of
myth and legend the entry of the rebel Powers, who rebel
against the bonds of blood of the fourth post-Atlantean
epoch.

Now the
region out of which these impulses proceeded in the fourth
postAtlantean epoch is the region wherein the
Archangel-Beings rule. Therefore the narratives are always
such that the human being stands rather remote from the
influences that take place out of the Spiritual World. Either
it is an oracle that brings the message from the Spiritual
World, or else it is the direct intervention of the World of
the Gods Themselves. Helena, you know, is a daughter of Leda
and Zeus; here too the Spiritual World works in directly. In
our time it is the dark and backward Angel-Beings, and they
naturally work through a far more intimate intercourse with
human beings. I have already told you, if one would discuss
or even only hint at many things that are connected with this
working of the Dark Powers since the, last third of the
nineteenth century, one treads on very thin ice indeed! But
you can tell from the whole context; the seeking of social
structure through the bonds of blood, which was the right and
normal evolution for the fourth post-Atlantean epoch,
represents, where it remains behind in the fifth epoch, one
of those impulses with which the human beings of this epoch
will have to battle. We must however acid another thing which
I have also told you. Something entirely new is now
occurring. The fourth postAtlantean epoch — its
wrestling with Birth and Death — was a repetition of
Atlantean time. Now something new makes it appearance —
something created directly out of Maya or Illusion. Yet this
Illusion we must also understand; we must only understand it
rightly. It goes without saying, Maya was always there. As I
explained in the essay which you will shortly be able to read
in the Reich, in relation to the Chemical Wedding of
Christian Rosenkreuz, all consciousness originates out of
Illusion. Yet since the fifth post-Atlantean epoch began,
Illusion is present in a more than usual degree. Illusion
will appear increasingly in this form: — Human beings
will give themselves up to illusions. Illusions there always
were, but they were always connected with other powers in the
third post-Atlantean epoch, with the forces of
“elective affinity”; in the fourth post-Atlantean
epoch with the forces of Birth and Death; in the fifth
post-Atlantean epoch with the forces of Evil. Illusion, Maya
itself, will be seized upon by Evil. Moreover, it will all be
permeated by that element of which I have also told von
— by cleverness, intelligence.

It sounds
paradoxical when one asserts that it is good for men that
they can learn to know all these things. But the fact is, the
human being can only come to spiritual freedom by growing
strong against resistance. This, one can readily see.

Moreover,
precisely that which is connected with the number Five is
always connected in this way with the unfolding of Evil.
Human beings will have to accustom themselves to one thing:
to regard the inrush of the forces of Evil as an inrush of
very laws of Nature, forces of Nature. Then they will learn
to know them, and they will know what lives and moves in the
very depths of things. We must not regard Evil from the
outset as one would, who in the fulness of his egoism merely
wanted to get away, to flee from it. We cannot do so. But we
must penetrate it with consciousness; we must learn to know
it, — really learn to know it. Above all, in our time
already a force is preparing in the realm of human beings,
— a force which tends to create illusions that are
harmful and destructive. I will give you a little example of
one such illusion. In giving this example, once again I do
not wish in any way or in the very least to take sides in one
direction or the other; I simply wish to give you an example
of this entry of Illusion.

Assume that a
politician appears upon the scenes to-day, wishing to speak
out of his inmost impulse of his own attitude to the wheel of
the world — to the various things that are being said
and clone to-day, from one quarter or another. Suppose that
this politician found occasion to express himself about the
part that is being played in the events of our time by the
British State system (I say the State system; for with the
nations themselves we are not concerned in this connection)
and by the hidden powers that are behind it, — powers
of which we have often spoken. Assume that a politican feels
called upon to speak of this. He wishes to make plain how he
considers that a right relationship to the British impulses
can be established.

Suppose now
that such a politician were to say the following. Suppose he
were to say: It would be an unfriendly action against the
Power that rules the Sea, to paralyse or lessen its
superiority. What would you say? This politician notes the
fact that there is a Power that rules over the Sea. One must
take some attitude towards it. Since, after all, this Power
rules the Sea, it would be an unfriendly act, he says, to
hinder its development. Therefore one should refrain from
such unfriendly action.

What could
one say of such a politician? I think the very least that one
could say would be that he stands for a policy of Power
— tllachtpolitik. Is is not so? Wherever the Power is,
in that direction let us turn. This, at the least, seems to
emerge from his words. But to-day one does not say so. One
does not take one's stand in such a case and frankly say:
“I stand for a policy of Power; I will attach myself to
the Power which happens to have power.” But on the
contrary one says, one defines it thus: “I stand for
Right and Freedom and for the Independece of Nations.”

One says
these two things side by side. One says that one stands for
Right and Freedom of the Nations, and directly side by side
with this, one says: “Let us above all attach ourselves
to the particular Power which has the power, and commit no
unfriendly act in relation to it.”

You see from
this how human beings involve themselves in illusions. For I
have here put before you the case of the Swedish politician
Branting. He, a neutral politician, is the man who spoke in
this way. That is the way one carries on a neutral policy, of
course. I do not say it as a reproach or to take sides with
one or another party. I say it as a pure description of how
such things must take their course to-day. One is
enthusiastic, needless to say, for Right and Freedom of the
Nations, and yet — one stands for a such a policy. One
does not confess that one stands for it for the simple reason
that one can do no other, — that would be the truth,
— but on the contrary one says that one stands for it
inspired by the impulses of Right and Freedom for all
Nations.

With such
things as these we must indeed concern ourselves. It is not
enough for anyone to give himself up to the fairy-tales that
are going through the world to-day; we must take these things
into our consciousness. Only by this means is it possible to
attach oneself to the real impulses of evolution which I have
described. No age was ever so little enlightened about itself
as is the present. No other age stands in such dire need of
enlightenment about itself. Think only how proud it was of
its great progress in every kind of human thought. Why, they
had even succeeded in finding impulses for Social Science,
out of Natural Science! I have often spoken to you of the
science of social life.

Think for a
moment, what is so often said in official quarters to this
day on educational and social questions, questions of right
and justice and so forth. Try to transplant yourself into the
frame of mind in which these people bring forward their
supposed infallible truths, while at the same time they would
suppress absolutely everything that resounds from any other
quarter. Part of what modern humanity believed thus fondly,
has led to the event that through the impulses of this
humanity, — impulses of Illusion upon the one hand, of
Nationality upon the other — five million human beings
have been consigned to death during two years and three to
three-and-a-half million have been permanently wounded. It
was so after two years, and now, considerably more than three
years have elapsed. This is only the consequence of the false
thoughts that were entertained, — thoughts in which
illusion was allied with destructive power. From many another
thing that is spoken nowadays about education or questions of
right and justice, similar consequences will evolve if it
goes on in this way, uninfluenced by spiritual life and
being. For in the last resort everything depends on this. To
kindle the spiritual forces in the consciousness of mankind
is an absolute need for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Our
criticism of the opposite, materialistic opinion is but a
part of the zeal with which we call to life the spiritual
impulses within us. This is the thing that matters. Whatever
has to happen among men must also be undertaken by men. If we
have made ourselves ready to take our stand where the ray
falls, the ray will come in good time; of that you may be
certain. This preparation, this making-ready, can, however,
only take place through the community. It will be for the
individual human beings, in the fifth postAtlantean epoch,
only so far as the ideas are concerned; but it will depend on
the understanding with which communities will receive these
ideas.